Thank you, TIME magazine! Little Seal has made the annual list of the 25 Best Blogs of 2012. And thanks again to Jennifer Weber, who was the first person who suggested that I start this blog in the first place! 

 

http://techland.time.com/2012/10/22/25-best-blogs-2012/slide/little-seal/

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Letter from —

Autumn mourns the leaves shaking from green to yellow. They eat special cut lamb shanks and drink fizzy red martinis in the bathtub. The commentator’s mouth dips to the right no matter which political candidate she is discussing. We laugh because we want to cry. It is unde… Read full post »

The last time I came through Chicago’s O’Hare airport was in June 2011 while en route to Spain. At that time I was in a fugue of grief. Time was a trampoline; every step forward was followed by an awkward leap in an unexpected direction. I had been offered a residency… Read full post »

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that my book about my experience with Ronan, The Still Point of the Turning World, is available for pre-order on Amazon. My friend Catherine Davis is responsible for the beautiful cover. And thanks especially to Andrea, my editor, who was the smartest and b… Read full post »

This beautiful essay by Sarah Sentilles arrived today in my inbox at just the right moment. I find myself at a loss for words, and want to let her voice – and her message – speak for itself. 

Precarious Life

Sarah Sentilles

August 23, 2012

 

There’s a temptation to turn… Read full post »

Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012 at Backroad Pizza, 1807 2nd Street #1, Santa Fe, NM 87505, 2 pm – 5pm.

Art Auction and Live Music.  All proceeds go to help families with children living with Tay-Sachs and other similar life-limiting diseases.  Learn more at National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases All… Read full post »

“Grief – like social class, its sociological equivalent – is the greatest divider, but it is also a leveler. Not everyone is going to “raise their rank†or be born with one, but everyone will experience grief.”

http://therumpus.net/2012/08/sunday-rumpus-essay-shadows-and-ghosts-ba… Read full post »

Someone to hold me:  As I face my son’s inevitable death, I realize how little I once understood grief, or how to help a person in pain.

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/12/someone_to_hold_me/

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Poem for a Lost Birthday

 

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life. – Jane Hirschfield

 

Today you are — years old.

 A dream:

I followed a man

for whom I carried compliments

and a stack of graded papers

marked with “A’s.†In his house

 … Read full post »

That, finally, is all it means to be alive: to be able to die

-J.M. Coetzee

In Preparation for a Death

So this is the labor:

scooping up the dry

bodies of flies

from beneath the meditation mats,

watching the dark

cluster in the dust pan,

I’m thinking about the… Read full post »

Last March I visited Emily, Rick and Ronan in Santa Fe – this was the first time I had met Ronan, and it was shortly after his Tay-Sachs diagnosis, in January 2011.  This May I flew from Boston to ABQ to visit again.  

I’d heard from Emily about how Ronan… Read full post »

A beautiful post by my friend, the terrific and talented writer Elizabeth Tannen.

 

            It’s evening in Santa Fe, and I’m standing with Ronan in his bedroom. He lies on his changing table, his body still, sheathed in a long-sleeved onesie dotted with penguins. I stand… Read full post »

Tonight, at the National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Organization’s Annual Family Conference in Orlando, I attended a commemoration ceremony for the children who have died this year and in previous years. The name of each child was read aloud. Pictures were shown. Candles were lit. A room ful… Read full post »

For Emily

 

Last night you dreamed of a silver lake, a shelf of ice on the side of a mountain, and a sleeping brown bear.

The icy side of the mountain came with all the familiar sounds – a sizzling crack somewhere deep and unseen, some wind blowing like a… Read full post »

New post on Slate.com – “He has a degenerative disease that has left him blind, paralyzed, and increasingly nonresponsive. If I had known before he was born, I would have saved him from suffering.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/02/rick_santorum_and_prenatal_tes… Read full post »

Today I got an email from my friend Phil in New York – a dear friend from graduate school who has already seen me, ten years ago, through a difficult time. A few weeks ago I received a beautiful letter from him, and I wrote an email this morning to thank… Read full post »

A new essay on The Nervous Breakdown. A re-interpretation of Kierkegaard’s re-imagining of the sacrifice of Isaac from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/emrapp/2012/02/the-open-road-kierkegaards-fear-and-trembling-revisited/#comment-210925

Today an essay in the Rumpus, about the life-saving power of female friendship. Thanks to Gina Frangello for commissioning the piece.

http://therumpus.net/2012/01/transformation-and-transcendence-the-power-of-female-friendship/#more-95368

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Of a Beautiful Child

 

I am becoming cicada husk, the cool

Throat of an empty vase, the dark space

Between stars. You touch me and I see

That monstrous child Montaigne pitied

On the streets of Paris – my inseparable twin

 

Hanging from the center of my chest,

Your… Read full post »

 Anniversary

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.

The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.

The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were a God.

Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.

Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.

Separated… Read full post »

Thank you, Alma, lovely poet full of generosity and compassion, for this gift of a poem for Ronan. Lorca was my muse this summer, so Alma is also a mind-reader!

“Where is the duende? Through the empty arch comes

a wind, a mental wind, blowing relentlessly over the

heads of the… Read full post »

For Sarah

Every year I make resolutions. Every year I collect convenient pull-out workouts from Health or Self or Glamour or whichever magazine features glossy hotties beaming from the cover in some bust-boosting mini-dress, promising that you, too, can be a hottie (but also grounded and a good cook… Read full post »

Today a poem by Katie Ford, a friend, prophetic poet, and mama. I met Katie at Harvard Divinity School, where we were both students. Her poems have been making people stop in their tracks and take a deep breath since then. Amazing, searing language wedded to huge intellectual power and gorgeous… Read full post »